THE CHILDREN
The success of the conservation movement in the United States depends in
the end on the understanding the women have of it. No forward step in
this whole campaign has been more deeply appreciated or more welcomed
than that which the National Society of the Daughters of the American
Revolution and other organizations of women have taken in appointing
conservation committees.
Patriotism is the key to the success of any nation, and patriotism first
strikes its roots in the mind of the child. Patriotism which does not
begin in early years may, though it does not always, fail under the
severest trials. I say "not always," for many men and women have proved
their patriotic devotion to this country although they were born
elsewhere. Yet, as a rule, it must begin with the children. And almost
without exception it is the mother who plants patriotism in the mind of
the child. It is her duty. The growth of patriotism is first of all in
the hands of the women of any nation. In the last analysis it is the
mothers of a nation who direct that nation's destiny.
The fundamental task of patriotism is to see to it that the Nation
exists and endures in honor, security, and well-being. Fortunately there
is no question as to our existing in honor, and little if any as to our
continuing to exist in security.
The great fundamental problem which confronts us all now is this: Shall
we continue, as a Nation, to exist in well-being? That is the
conservation problem.
If we are to have prosperity in this country, it will be because we have
an abundance of natural resources available for the citizen. In other
words, as the minds of the children are guided toward the idea of
foresight, just to that extent, and probably but little more, will the
generations that are coming hereafter be able to carry through the great
task of making this Nation what its manifest destiny demands that it
shall be.
Women should recognize, if this task is to be carried out, one great
truth above all others. That this Nation exists for its people, we all
admit; but that the natural resources of the Nation exist not for any
small group, not for any individual, but for all the people--in other
words, that the natural resources of the Nation belong to all the
people--that is a truth the whole meaning of which is just beginning to
dawn on us. There is no form of monopoly which exists or ever has
existed on any large scale which was not based more or less directly
upon the control of natural resources. There is no form of monopoly that
has ever existed or can exist which can do harm if the people
understand that the natural resources belong to the people of the
Nation, and exercise that understanding, as they have the power to do.
It seems to me that of all the movements which have been inaugurated to
give power to the conservation idea, the foresight idea, there is none
more helpful than that the women of the United States are taking hold of
the problem. We must make all the people see that now and in the future
the resources are to be developed and employed, yet at the same time
guarded and protected against waste--not for small groups of men who
will control them for their own purposes, but for all the people through
all time.
The question of the conservation of our natural resources is not a
simple question, but it requires, and will increasingly require,
thinking out along lines directed to the fundamental economic basis upon
which this Nation exists. I think it can not be disputed that the
natural resources exist for and belong to the people; and I believe that
the part of the work which falls to the women (and it is no small part)
is to see to it that the children, who will be the men and women of the
future, have their share of these resources uncontrolled by monopoly and
unspoiled by waste.
What specific things can the women of the Nation do for conservation?
The Daughters of the American Revolution have begun admirably in the
appointment of a Conservation Committee, and other organizations of
women are following their example. Few people realize what women have
already done for conservation, and what they may do. Some of the
earliest effective forest work that was done in the United States, work
which laid the lines that have been followed since, was that of the
Pennsylvania Forestry Association, begun and carried through first of
all by ladies in Philadelphia. One of the bravest, most intelligent and
most effective fights for forestry that I have known of was that of the
women of Minnesota for the Minnesota National Forest. It was a superb
success, and we have that forest to-day. I have known of no case of
persistent agitation under discouragement finer in a good many ways than
the fight that the women of California have made to save the great grove
of Calaveras big trees. As a result the Government has taken possession
of that forest and will preserve it for all future generations.
Time and again, then, the women have made it perfectly clear what they
can do in this work. Obviously the first point of attack is the stopping
of waste. Women alone can bring to the school children the idea of the
wickedness of national waste and the value of public saving. The issue
is a moral one; and women are the first teachers of right and wrong. It
is a question of seeing what loyalty to the public welfare demands of
us, and then of caring enough for the public welfare not to set personal
advantage first. It is a question of inspiring our future citizens while
they are boys and girls with the spirit of true patriotism as against
the spirit of rank selfishness, the anti-social spirit of the man who
declines to take into account any other interest than his own; whose one
aim and ideal is personal success. Women both in public and at home, by
letting the men know what they think, and by putting it before the
children, can make familiar the idea of conservation, and support it
with a convincingness that nobody else can approach.
However important it may be for the lumberman, the miner, the
wagon-maker, the railroad man, the house-builder,--for every
industry,--that conservation should obtain, when all is said and done,
conservation goes back in its directest application to one body in this
country, and that is to the children. There is in this country no other
movement except possibly the education movement--and that after all is
in a sense only another aspect of the conservation question, the seeking
to make the most of what we have--so directly aimed to help the
children, so conditioned upon the needs of the children, so belonging to
the children, as the conservation movement; and it is for that reason
more than any other that it has the support of the women of the Nation.